Skol303

A (hopefully!) quick question for those in the know... I'm looking to export/render the individual channels of a track as 'stems' for someone else to remix. Should I... A. Export each channel exactly as it stands within the mix? Or... B. Standardise the volume of each channel by boosting the db of quieter instruments before creating the stems? - eg. export each channel at as close to zero db as possible (as if they'd been normalised). PS: this isn't a commercial job or anything... Just an old track that a friend of mine wants to tinker with. Any advice gratefully received!

You might find something suitable on one of these websites: [url="http://www.freesound.org/index.php?logout=true"]http://www.freesound.org/index.php?logout=true[/url] [url="http://sampleswap.org/index.php"]http://sampleswap.org/index.php[/url] [url="http://www.soundsnap.com/"]http://www.soundsnap.com/[/url]

Here I go, blundering into this discussion and likely to put my big, sweaty foot in something... Surely, regardless of personal situations, it's better to know how to read music than not, if you're a musician. That doesn't mean you HAVE to read music. If you're having a happier time not worrying about it, then that surely speaks for itself. But if we could take a magic pill and suddenly be fluent at sight reading then we would, no? If you're not enjoying learning to read notation; if you find it to be a chore that's taking away the fun and enjoyment from music, then stop. It's simple. But don't try justifying your decision by trying to persuade yourself (and others) that you're giving up because it's unnecessary, as that just comes across as sour grapes. If you're going to give up on something, do so in earnest, not begrudgingly. Otherwise the pangs of regret will only come back and bite you in time... Here endeth the sermon ;-) [PS: magical pills for learning notation are available from Skol Industries at the usual address... at least I think that's what these pills are for; I haven't been able to sit down for weeks!!]

[quote name='grahamd' post='1353332' date='Aug 27 2011, 09:42 AM']On the money for sure. A one note bassline played with real feel says more to people than some technical soulless exercise[/quote] Sure. But then a technical exercise played with real feel says more to people than a one note bassline played without soul, no? The thing with this debate is that it always ends up along the lines of: "You can't learn groove/funk/whatever, you have to 'feel' it" and "technical ability is no match for soul". Both of which statements are complete ****ocks, to be honest. Why? Because technical ability and soul/groove are not mutually exclusive. You don't just have one at the expense of the other... you can actually be technically brilliant and have oodles of groove; likewise you can be technically retarded and have no soul whatsoever... or like most musicians, you probably lie somewhere between these extremes. I hate to say it, but the technical vs soulful argument is fundamentally flawed. It's just not that simple, and the reason this debate keeps cropping up is because people want to boil it down to just one or the other - technical or soulful - when the reality is always a mixture of both. As with most things, people who are very technically able often make it look easy. That doesn't mean they're gifted by the God of Groove. It just means they probably invested hours/years of laborious practice to get to where they're at.

£200 second-hand for me! If it takes a few knocks, I'm not crying about it... Though I am planning on spending a fair bit more on an upright, someday.

Jeez, this question shows how "out of the game" I am these days! I used to work as music journalist many moons ago (mid-90s - early noughties) and back then the Interweb was nowhere near as powerful a tool for bands to promote themselves as it is today. Unfortunately I don't have a clue where to start in terms of which are the best reviewing sites. But I have an old friend who still works in music PR/A&R, and he's always banging on about the 'Direct-to-Fan' model being the big thing these days - ie. by-passing the old, traditional channels and creating interest in your music by engaging directly with potential fans yourself, rather than via the usual review sites/zines, distributors, labels and so on. It's apparently all about: 1. Identifying your fans 2. Developing relationships with your fans 3. Marketing to them directly and "monetizing" your relationships (ie. selling stuff! And not just music: merchandise too) 4. Using relationships and your fans' own social networks to expand your fan base. Or something like that!? Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Nimbit and so on and meant to be key to this strategy. Bear in mind here that I don't use any of these social networking sites myself, so I'm not speaking with authority here! Just passing on advice I've heard second-hand. Also, this strategy probably depends on the market your music is suited to. The direct-to-fan approach is really aimed at young audiences who are social media savvy, but I guess it could apply to others too. The point here is: maybe ignore the review sites and instead find ways of letting potential fans hear and review your music for themselves, and recommend it to their friends that way. Hope that helps. So much for the days of the NME, eh??

Nice recording Mike, I can see where you get your groove from now! Very tight funk outfit you have going on there. The drums & percussion in particular; oh and the bassist ain't too shabby either

[quote name='redstriper' post='1349552' date='Aug 23 2011, 09:39 PM']What is wrong with Cubase 1 ? I ask because I use it and I can't imagine what any newer software can do that it can't.[/quote] Cubase 1... happy memories The only real problem I had with it was crashing - it seemed to crash all the time when I was using it; but then I was running a fairly low spec Mac at the time, which may explain things. I've only started making music again recently, but I certainly had fun with the original Cubase. I guess if it works for you, then stick with it.

Like it Especially the 'Back in Black' section... works great in a hip hop track.

Yep, I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of this thread. So much so that I'm willing to swap anyone's 'pro' basses with more 'zen-friendly' models, which I guarantee will help you to play better and find the true meaning of life! That's a 100% guarantee right here (usual smallprint applies, natch). Just parcel them up and post 'em to Skol Industries at the usual address. Don't delay - find your zen today!

[quote name='51m0n' post='1348967' date='Aug 23 2011, 01:20 PM']If you only have a single guitar source then you can do all sorts nasty tricks like send a slightly delayed signal to the other side, adding a spot of reverb or compression or extra dirt to it, or some kind of chorus/flange/modulation to it or the reverb or the delay, eq it differently over there, anything really just make it slightly different as well as slightly delayed. Or you can put some other instrument over there - Hammond is always a good one - to balance things out. Hell even an automatic double tracker vst is better than nothing! If you get serious about this you can certainly use massive amounts of time copying the original guitar part and then editing it to be out ever so slightly with the original track, cut here, stretch there, chnage the levels here and there so the compression acts differently, make it sound real, and subsequently the two together will sound fatter. In this day and age nothing is unfair. This will work better than the simple delay trick, and give you ultimate control compared to an ADT effect.[/quote] ^ Gotcha, cheers 51m0n! (that's another beer I owe you...). I have a track with a single guitar that I'm going to try this on. I think I'll test it out using delay/reverb/compression first (only because that seems like the easier solution), and then have a go at editing/cutting/stretching the original guitar part later on, once I've nailed the first. [quote name='51m0n' post='1348967' date='Aug 23 2011, 01:20 PM']If you just duplicate ithe two all you are doing is raising the volume of a track panned central. That is exactly what we are trying to avoid at all costs, its far too much competition with the lead vocal.[/quote] ^ Cheers for pointing that out too. I'd have probably tried that otherwise and walked right into a new world of mixing pain!

... and if the battery gets stuck for any reason, don't be impatient and force it out, breaking the connector in the process! (as I've done in the past). It's one way to give your neighbours/wife/goldfish a break from your bass playing for a while, but not a recommended one

[quote name='51m0n' post='1348206' date='Aug 22 2011, 06:07 PM']One 'gotcha' that will get you time and again (still gets me), in learning to concentrate your attention on a very specific part of the mix in terms of frequency I find it becomes increasingly easy to put aside other areas of the mix, and sometimes you come back to your work only to hear all the bits that you never got round to fixing. Suddenly the mix you had a warm glow about has become an absolute mess. Time to get the eqs out and cut some more crud!!![/quote] ^ Ha ha! Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at right now. I finish something and it sounds "ok", then I come back to it the next day and it sounds terrible. Practice makes perfect, and all that... so I guess I have a lot of practicing to do. Cheers again for the top notch advice. You've definitely given me some 'clarity' in terms of how I should approach EQ'ing, which has been a great help. Honestly, you and Rimskidog should a write a book on this stuff some day! "Never Mind the ****ocks: Here's the Basschat Guide to Mixing" [quote name='51m0n' post='1347816' date='Aug 22 2011, 10:19 AM']Double up guitars to pann them left anf right (do multi track them, do not just duplicate the same track and pan it) - if that doesnt fit the situation then send a delay or reverb to the other side to widen the guitar.[/quote] ^ PS: I'm probably being very thick here... but what do you mean by "multi track" in this instance? I understand this in the context of working with two separate guitar tracks. But if I have only one guitar track, then the only option I can think of is to duplicate it and pan the original track left and the duplicate track right (both in mono). Like I said, please explain further for the sake of my addled brain!

Within reason, I believe any musician can be taught to play any genre convincingly. This happens all the time with session and orchestral musicians. I mean, it'd be a rare thing for a concert cellist to say they "just aren't Baroque enough to play Bach", and yet we believe that funk is somehow magically separate to this? I doubt it. I grew up in a household that listened to a lot of Northern Soul. Yet I have a friend, who's a professional musician, who can rattle out soul basslines much better than I can - even though in technical terms they're simple enough for me to play confidently. Why? Because he has a much better understanding of musicianship and timing than I do. And he hasn't got that from listening to records (he's a rock fan, anyhow), he's got it from spending bucketloads of hours practicing. And yes, buckets are the official measurement of practice time...! Of course there are always fuzzy edges to this kind of discussion. There'll always be the kid who grew up listening to funk and is the funkiest mother-funker in town as a result. But then there'll also be his brother, who shares the same background yet now plays concertina in the local Morris dancing troupe. Go figure.

I can't speak as someone who is proficient at playing bass, as I'm still very much an 'early learner'. But from experience elsewhere, I'd say that learning pretty much anything is very rarely a straight, linear progression of improvement. What's more common is that you improve in 'steps' - ie. you rapidly get better at something, then you 'plateau' and level out with little evident improvement for a while, then you suddenly take another leap forward, and so on. By the sound of things, you've hit a plateau and just need to stick with it before you see further improvement. Also, be patient! Two years is no time, to be honest, so I'm sure there's still plenty more to learn...

^ Superb and detailed advice as always, 51m0n - and greatly appreciated! So in essence: there's no point me getting too hung up on frequency ranges, because ultimately I'm going to have to treat each instrument in each mix in a different way... so I might as well start training my ear now, as that's what I'll end up using anyway. I think I get it now, cheers for bearing with me! I actually had some proof of this over the weekend, when I was practicing with EQing. I did start by using some of the frequencies I'd posted in the document, but in the end I ended up resetting all the dials/faders and doing it all over again by ear! I'm reasonably confident using things like stereo width and panning, but compression is another 'dark art' that I'll probably be asking for your advice on in due course... Anyway, thanks again.

^ Gotcha, and I couldn't agree more with either you or S1m0n. More than happy to bow to your superior know-how Like I said, I wasn't suggesting that a list of frequencies should ever replace using your ears - otherwise the best studios would be run be deaf mathematicians... all I'm saying is that for me personally, it's certainly helped to know, for instance, that I can lose some of the 'boominess' from a typical kick drum by starting to tweak its frequency somewhere around [i]here[/i]; or I can usually make a snare sound more crisp by boosting it somewhere around [i]there[/i], so that's where I'll start twiddling. Of course, it depends on the song in question and the context of everything else in the mix. But for me, it has helped to have a rough idea of where each instrument [i]usually[/i] lies in the frequency spectrum. Not as a replacement for using my ears, but just as a starting point to help me understand where different sounds might be sitting in the mix. You guys can probably reel off the typical frequency bands of instruments in your sleep, so for me it's just been a basic exercise of getting at least some of this understanding for myself. The rest, as you say, is going to be all about listening, listening and then listening some more! Anyway, you can count on me pestering you guys for advice when I get stuck!

[quote name='51m0n' post='1345683' date='Aug 19 2011, 05:48 PM']Three words:- [size=7][b]Use Your Ears!![/b][/size][/quote] Very good point well said. But then I wasn't intending to provide the 'Gospel of EQ According to Skol', simply a rough guide for novices, such as myself, to at least have a basic idea of where to start tweaking all of those knobs and dials... If you're skilled at EQ'ing, then using your ears is undoubtedly the best way to go about it. If you don't have a damn clue what you're doing (like me!), then simply being told to "use your ears" ain't quite as useful as having at least some basic notion of where to begin, bogus or not. At least that's been my experience. I'm sure there are probably books written on the subject of EQing, but if not then you might have a super-concise best seller on your hands right there... "Master EQ'ing in Three Simple Words"

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1345428' date='Aug 19 2011, 01:38 PM']...if all I end up doing is produicing another 'vanity' cd that would impress my Mum and sell 11 copies, its pretty pointless.[/quote] ^ Ha ha! Yes indeed... and there are plenty of such CDs around. [quote name='Bilbo' post='1345428' date='Aug 19 2011, 01:38 PM']I'll keep plugging away at my composing and, may be one day, if I come up with something of merit, I can look to get it played/recorded. I am working on my own sax.bass/drums trio at the moment (which gigs) so maybe writing something for that and then recording it woudl be more useful.[/quote] ^ Sounds very interesting. I have a feeling that what you deem as being "of merit" would probably be a great achievement for most folks, so don't be too modest here Bilbo. Your trio sounds like the perfect platform for some recording work, and you'd certainly have at least one buyer in the form of yours truly. Which along with your mum would make 2! Only another 9 to go...

In case anyone finds this useful... I'm currently geeking away and trying to get a better understanding of using EQ as a mixing tool (something I've largely ignored till now!). As a result of this, I've compiled various hints and tips from across the Interweb into a handy document, which I thought I'd share with y'all here, in case it helps any other EQ novices: [attachment=87410:EQ_Instruments.doc] ^ None of this advice is my own: it's been cribbed from various websites and forums (including this one!), so please note I don't claim to hold any copyright on it. I'd also take some of this advice with a proverbial 'pinch of salt': EQing is a very subjective art, as I'm finding out, so the document is meant to provide a general guide only; a starting point to help you get tweaking. Oh yeah, and it may well contain numerous mistakes! All part of trial and error...

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1344863' date='Aug 18 2011, 09:04 PM']Its finding the time, Mike. I can knock out bass lines in moments but structuring a backing track takes me hours I haven't got!! Must try harder!![/quote] Great playing as always, Bilbo! Collaboration might the key to backing tracks if you're struggling to find time for them. Oddly enough, I can normally knock out a drum pattern and accompaniment at short notice, but spend hours fiddling over bass lines! Horses for courses, etc, etc. I'd offer to help you out here myself, but I currently have my hands full with the recently arrived Skol Jnr. Although there are plenty of folks here (and on other forums) who I'm sure would be happy to collaborate. Just an idea...

I'm a sucker for upgrades myself, but then I spend a lot of time tinkering with music software - probably as much if not more than I spend playing bass - so I'm often keen for new toys to play with. But as a general rule, I'd quote the old adage: "if it's not broken, don't fix it"! There's also a lot to be said for working within limitations and getting the most out of things, rather than buying new stuff in order to 'improve'. So I'd say stick with what you have until you hit upon limitations that suggest you'd be best upgrading.

Band biogs are indeed a tricky business... I used to read a bunch of these when I worked as a music journalist, and some of them were awful! Generally speaking, they need to be "interesting" and full of personality in order to stand out from the plethora of dirge put out by other bands competing for the same attention. And of course, the style of the biog should reflect the style of band and their music. A dash of humour - if done right - can add personality to a biog and help the artist come across as being "human" and not overly pretentious. But it's a careful balancing act and jokes about pizza, as mentioned by the OP, are exactly the sort of thing to avoid. The worst offenders are always those that try to be overly serious or generally over-sell themselves as being the "next big thing" (no journalist or A&R person wants to hear that, as they believe it's their job to decide who's the next big thing! Sad as that may be). There's also a certain annoyance that comes from reading about someone who first "first in love with music at the age of 3, listening to his/her father's Motown records..." etc. Nobody likes a smart ass, after all. So yeah, it's not an easy thing to get right. But I'd say the key things are to focus on conveying your personality, rather than trying to show-off. Journalists and A&R folks are interested in what makes your band [i]different[/i] from others, rather than what makes you [i]better[/i]. Why? Because they're looking for interesting things or different angles to help sell their magazines, or fill their artist roster. And they sure as hell ain't interested in what pizza toppings you enjoy! Keep that stuff for banter down the pub, which is where your band will stay if that's your approach... [disclaimer: not that there's anything wrong with pub gigs!]

[quote name='Dropzone' post='1342893' date='Aug 17 2011, 11:10 AM']I have a really old version of cubase and have heard the wonders spoken of reason / record. Essentially I want to record rehearsals and also hopefuly some fairly decent home recordings. Is there a way to try reason /record out without paying for it? And is this suitable for what I need? Ta Mike[/quote] In short: yes and yes! I'm an avid user of Reason/Record myself... love 'em... very intuitive softwares and great for home recording in my opinion: they're quite literally a "studio in a box". The (only) main limitation is a lack of VST support, but you can very easily ReWire Reason into other software, such as Cubase or Logic, if you're desperate to use 3rd party plug-ins. You can download demos of both softwares from the Propellerhead website - if you want to record audio, then 'Record' is what you're after (I guess the clue is in the name!): [url="http://www.propellerheads.se/download/"]http://www.propellerheads.se/download/[/url] Bear in mind that Reason 6 is being release on 30th September, which effectively combines both of these softwares into a single package. If you buy either in the meantime then you'll get a fairly hefty discount on upgrading to Reason 6. ... and before anyone else mentions it, I'd also recommend checking out Reaper - a very cheap and reliable DAW that's superb value for money: [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]http://www.reaper.fm/[/url] [^ dammit, beaten by 51m0n! ... must type faster in future!!] Have fun!

[quote name='Blademan_98' post='1342335' date='Aug 16 2011, 07:55 PM']Buttery Biscuit Bass[/quote] Ha ha, yes indeed...like it! Although I think Greg Wallace probably has the copyright on that one